Sunday, November 02, 2008

Testing ones temper

Last week, I said two things that could have been construed as a little inappropriate for the situation. It hadn't really been a good week, and the only thing left to do was get a bit squiffy and generally voice my disdain with all unfortunate enough to be around me. One of the more unfortunate things about this whole scenario, was that VG and I had to go on a shopping mission to cater for the events detailed in my last installment - ie, wedding.

Unfortunately, over the nesting winter months, too many bottles of red, hearty beef and guinness stews, and of course cheese platters and a good number of puddings have left me a little (a lot) on the porky side. As you can no doubt imagine, this doesn't really leave me in a particularly good frame of mind for shopping expeditions.
It's not so much the excess fat that's the problem, but the absolute spectacle of trying to find womens clothing that isn't designed to fit a minibus as soon as you cross the awful, awful size 16 threshold.

And it's not just the fit that's insanely miscalculated either - it's the fucking god awful patterns they insist on covering everything with!
"Oh look, it's spring and FAT PEOPLE LOVE FLOWERS!", I could be heard shouting across one particular clotharium as I threw yet another shirt back in the general direction of the rack from whence it came. Needless to say, I am currently back at the gym.

But moving on - or indeed moving back somewhat - it's reasonably safe to say I had a varied and somewhat lonely childhood, one that to this day leaves pleasant enough, but still somewhat bitter memories of my primary school days. This had very little to do with the kids, or even the various towns, but more so the frequency at which my parents shifted locales during these formative years.

Actually, even when we were quite stationary, they had a very strange habit of removing me from one school (always at the midpoint of a term, of course) and placing me in a 'completely different' and 'much better' school, usually about 37 or so meters down the road.
It's difficult to say why this did this - indeed it's difficult to say why these two do a lot of the things they do, presumably because they are both absolutely, barking, batshit insane.

By grade six (final year of primary, for all you dirty foreigners), I had attended well over ten different primary schools. The vast majority of these schools - particularly towards the end - were tiny schools in hick filled farming communities, where by the age of ten most kids could probably, quite accurately detail what they would be when they grow up.

Every now and then when I visit these towns, I notice that many of them have done just that. Mr Hammond is now a boilermaker, Jenny is a nurse, and the rest of them pretty much grow various types of animals.
So, when this weekend past, VG & I sat on the balcony of our hotel, half cut and listening to Shazza and Matt below on the street argue about what song to play on the jukebox next - Khe Sahn or Living on a Prayer - I did not yell out the obvious answer ('You're the voice! You're the voice!'), no. Instead, and quite reasonably I believe, I observed that "I probably went to school with some of these people... AND LOOK WHO'S ON THE BALCONY NOW!". Then I chuckled evilly to myself for awhile. VG shook her head and looked suitably embarrassed.

But despite these recent and somewhat escalating outbursts, in the face of the circus that is currently occurring around my good self, I have mostly, I believe been the absolute picture of calm in the more retarded situations (yes, I know some of you are likely spitting your coffee all over your screen at that, but I still stand by it).

Like Saturday night, when I was in the middle to attempting to charm Mrs Campbell at a fancy affair involving hats. All was going well, we were discussing the economic development of the Melbourne CBD, and how this has affected the restaurant and bar scene in the city. I was erudite, I was charming, and I was earning my many refills of their tasty Gewurz. I was also writhing in pain after being stung on the arse by some fucker of an insect or another. Slowly, I transferred my wine to my left hand, and in some odd attempt to appear completely normal as I attempted to maim whatever the fuck was stinging me, I smoothed my shirt with such enthusiasm that my hand would brush over my arse from time to time. Strangely, she didn't seem to notice. However, after a quick glance over my shoulder to see if I could spot the errant insect, I found Mr Campbell staring at me sternly, mouth agape.

And still, patiently, I sit at work with my arse-bite itching madly, resisting the urge to yell at my bottom or otherwise throw tantrums about it. Currently, I am funnelling all of my anger and discomfort into addressing the ongoing matter of my work pc being a piece of shit. Last week, it crashed every time I tried to open a word document. Today, it's crashing every time I log into a particular database. Tomorrow, no doubt, it will find something equally irrational and annoying to torture me with. Stupid fucking piece of shit that it is.

Still, much better than yelling at ones coworkers. Wait - scratch that.

Anyway, as the weeks progress and wedding, christmas and the rest of the never ending train of events pass, I'm sure many a comment will be yelled enthusiastically at the unsuspecting, and hopefully, hopefully hopefully hopefully, I have suffered my first and last insect sting of the season. If any more were to occur, I might be compelled to take some kind of vengeance mission against all living bees, wasps, ants, etc, formal event or no formal event.

Stupid bees.









6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was the 2008 Trebbiano you drunkard! Well may Mr Campbell glare at you now...

Anonymous said...

And if it's any consolation, the mosquito probably od'd on alcohol after biting you, judging by all reports =P

The Rantolotl said...

no, it was far too early for that. And it definately wasn't a mosquito. Something far far stingier.

Anonymous said...

what about a wild horse that chased you around with a hypodermic syring full of citric acid? I hear they've been causing a lot of trouble lately, so the government are going to start giving police hummers to help stop it. I hear that horses really don't like hummers.

The Rantolotl said...

Well, I guess it works for the Melbourne cops, so why not?

Anonymous said...

goddammit that is so ridiculous i can't get over it. I mean seriously, what fucking drugs are our moronic government on?! First we have the "Force everyone out onto the streets at 2am, because having drunken crowds fighting for taxis stops violence". Then the brilliant "Hummers are great for crowd control and will miraculously make people happy and non-violent when they get accosted by one" and the "Oh, we'll just get rid of all the bad stuff on the internet!" fucking moronssss gahhhh!@!@$!!@$!@